Kiting skills like earthgrab totem and thunderstorm aren't that good in arena(thunderstorm is good in some scenarios) because there is not enough space. So simply you need cc to avoid getting destroyed by melee or at least have very good slows. Casters that don't have a good portion of cc or slows have passive damage mitigations and some low cd defensive skills. Elemental has close to nothing to live against a melee and does way less damage than other casters while getting trained. Out of all 3 shaman specs I think ele is and probably will be the worst spec to play in arena. You can always be very competitive in rated battlegrounds as ele tho.

Earthgrab is good and Thunderstorm is also good, TS also requires a high skillcap to use it effectively and in some scenarios can net you a good 5-7 seconds alone with your kill target, can also be used defensively.

With the addition of Shamanistic Rage Elemental will be much better equipped to face melee, ofcourse it wont give you total control of the situation but other survival talents have been buffed also and will further enhance our survivability.

- Elemental now has two effective survival CDs, SR and whichever you choose from the first Tier, personally I'd go with AS.
- Due to having alot of hard casts being good at fake casting is sort of a requirement if you want to be successful as Ele.
- The most common problem I face at least is Blanket silences, the only thing that makes me live through those at the moment is AS.
- I'd very much welcome a passive damage reduction even if they decide to nerf other survival talents in Tier 1, say a passive 10% damage reduction but now AS reduces damage by 30%, Nature's Guardian gives 20% HP and Stone bulwark stays the same I guess.

While I agree, this will never happen. Maybe ghost wolf or unleashed lightning will but not now. Elemental is imo really good in BGs...if you stay behind a team. In these situations, the pressure elemental can put out is imo unrivaled if the player is good and knows how to orchestrate burst. Thanks to a support team, elemental is really difficult to deal with especially next patch. I find myself often top on damage on a decent team.

I wouldn't play it in arena though. Do RBGs, I imagine every RBG team will be looking for a dedicated ele shaman next patch thanks to the chain lightning cleave and 25% pvp power on healing.

Four things I think will make arena viable for elemental for average players:
- Passive damage reduction in about 10-15%. Nuvoz has suggested 2% per lightning shield charge. You effectively switch between offense and defense.
- Totemic Projection actually working properly by projecting the active totem in the middle of the AoE marker or giving capacitor an 8-10yd stun range.
- Capacitor totem have a 1 second reduction on it's charge time, 2 seconds glyphed, 4 seconds not.
- Some ability that allows us to use totems while silenced for a short period of time.

While I agree, this will never happen. Maybe ghost wolf or unleashed lightning will but not now. Elemental is imo really good in BGs...if you stay behind a team. In these situations, the pressure elemental can put out is imo unrivaled if the player is good and knows how to orchestrate burst. Thanks to a support team, elemental is really difficult to deal with especially next patch. I find myself often top on damage on a decent team.

I wouldn't play it in arena though. Do RBGs, I imagine every RBG team will be looking for a dedicated ele shaman next patch thanks to the chain lightning cleave and 25% pvp power on healing.

Four things I think will make arena viable for elemental for average players:
- Passive damage reduction in about 10-15%. Nuvoz has suggested 2% per lightning shield charge. You effectively switch between offense and defense.
- Totemic Projection actually working properly by projecting the active totem in the middle of the AoE marker or giving capacitor an 8-10yd stun range.
- Capacitor totem have a 1 second reduction on it's charge time, 2 seconds glyphed, 4 seconds not.
- Some ability that allows us to use totems while silenced for a short period of time.

Don't know how you are doing that. I can do as you say, "orchestrate" burst but never be able to top damage done.

Originally Posted by Validity

If rogues become shit, all they can become is a different type of shit.

I wouldn't play it in arena though. Do RBGs, I imagine every RBG team will be looking for a dedicated ele shaman next patch thanks to the chain lightning cleave and 25% pvp power on healing.
.

Chain lightning cleave - I thought this was the PVE set bonus (smth like you have X chance of summoning a thunder bolt when you chainlightning and lightning bolt? Or did I misread it? So many patch notes...

PVP Power Healing - is that 25% *that* significant? I do like 25-30K now per healing surge, IIRC. 25% = additional 7.5K healing. Or is the math more complicated than that?